I own my hair and my laptop. That is all I own. Nothing more. Any errors and oversights you may see, I do apologize. I am running on little sleep and a rapidly deteriorating reality. I am yet to read TLG because I simply cannot get it in my country so this is post Atlantis Complex.
Oh, and Hi. Long time no see.
Summary: "A visual defect in which distant objects appear blurred because their images are focused in front of the retina rather than on it." which is still strange because he had always been right in front of her… and yet she never saw this coming.
Title: Myopia
By: AleauxVander B.D
One day it…changed.
Changed was all she could term it as, however vague and lacking in substance the word was in describing just how much things shifted between them, or more so shifted in her perspective of him. But things did change, though little at a time, such small, seemingly inconsequential things she took for granted or disregarded because it was a fleeting act of kindness on his part, or a lapse in his judgment causing this rare moment of weakness.
It couldn't be change. Artemis Fowl did well with change, only when measured and controlled by his skilled hands and no one else's.
But one day, staring up at his face with his left hand, the stronger of the two surprisingly, wrapped around her bicep, pulling her with all his might from the edge of that helicopter back unto the cold, unforgiving, safety of the steel ground beneath them, something loud and painful clicked into place in her mind and just as quickly as things shifted into focus and she could see, finally see, it slid out and the edges began to wan and whatever it was that she may have seen disappeared behind blurry lines.
He smiled at her, his breath heavy in her face, exhausted, his right arm broken and his left strained from pulling her body weight up singlehandedly and laughed a halting, surprised laugh.
"Too close for comfort, Captain," he said nodding towards the still open door of the aged, borrowed helicopter.
She pulled the door shut with much effort and fell back against it, feeling her heart beat etch lines into her chest and trying to calm her breathing, trying her best to not look at him to find whatever it is that she knew was missing from her vision, "You should have let me fall," she said to him jokingly, extending her hand for his and when he handed over the strained left hand, she examined it instead of looking at him.
"I'm afraid I am a bit too selfish to truly let you go," he said with another heavy laugh, one that caught her off guard so completely she looked up and stared.
The lines were still blurred but she could still see him, but something vital was missing.
Foaly spoke into his ear and Artemis turned his attention away from her and honestly, Holly didn't dwell much on that evening in the weeks to come.
The whole thing was a scandal, as anything Artemis got involved in tended to be below the surface.
The day after Opal Koboi was captured, it took them 3 months to find the other, within inches of Artemis' family, and it all came tumbling down.
Holly wasn't a psychologist but she could see it, see the darkness and the grim after effects of Atlantis Complex lurking within him, reminding him that he was as much human, as he was part fairy now; he took their power within him, and that power left its mark.
His mother, whom he fought for, suffered for and who suffered and fought for him, so close to the crazed pixie once more and Artemis ended it. One bullet and he ended it, unblinkingly, so coolly and unflinchingly that even Holly flinched from the resounding echo of the shot and the fairy fell to the floor and didn't move.
The magic within Opal's system fought to wrap itself around her wound and to resuscitate her but the blood flowed much quicker, taking with it the power, spilling it unto the carpet, absorbing it. And with a grand amount of skill and awareness she didn't know he possessed, he emptied the clip and in a few dexterous hand movements, put the guard in place and handed it over to her.
He paused only to wipe the smear of her blood off of her chin and then unto his handkerchief, and in the few seconds he had her small chin between his strong fingers, distracted by cleaning blood from her face, she looked at him, uncertain as to why her heart rate had tripled, why she felt something pulsing through her that she couldn't name, puzzled why, for the first, she felt something else towards him other than exasperation.
His dark eyes met hers, deep azure and hazel cloaked behind luxurious expanse of too long lashes and his thumb stroked her lower lip, sending a sharp spasm of pleasure and a shudder down her spine before he stepped around her and left.
She turned around desperately to watch him because, then, the blurriness had lifted and clarity reigned, but all she could see was his back, shoulders and his slightly shaky stride as he left his parents' room.
The weeks following the investigation and her subsequent suspension, she booked her free days, once her above ground privileges were reinstated, and went to visit him.
He looked amazing, and Holly realized then that she could say that in her head now, without feeling odd. He really did. Tall and handsome and well adjusted, brilliant young man, with enough LEP personnel, some of Holly's subordinates at that, stationed about his house to make anyone feel claustrophobic. He knew they were there, of course, but it was his penance for killing a fugitive, however much she deserved it, and he would pay it.
"Besides," he said with a cheeky grin she wasn't aware he even possessed, while the Spring Irish wind played havoc in her hair and he reached out to tuck her too long bangs behind her pointed ears, "They have many more stationed around the manor than out here. My family has 24-hour security besides Butler."
She smiled at him, an honest full smile that seemed to say more than she intended because his hand paused on her face, warming the spot on her cheek where his fingers lingered and his head tilted slightly to the right, examining her.
"You've changed." she said before he mentioned what he saw in her that he found so fascinating. "In many ways."
"Good ways, I hope." He inquired, eyes still trained on her.
She inclined her head, "All good," she insisted, "surprisingly. But I am trying to figure you out."
In true Artemis Fowl fashion, he leaned forward, intrigued, his fingers still warm on her face because he wasn't an idiot; he was well aware that her pupils dilated every time his long fingers stroked down her check, along her collar bone, and up the side of her neck and to her jaw.
"Oh?" he began. "Go ahead."
She matched his stare, leaned forward until their breaths mingled, until her own small hands covered his on her face and stroked down his arm and she felt her body flush, watching his breath slow, then increase suddenly and his dark beautiful eyes dilate.
"You are something else." She began, "You terrify me and fascinate me all in one."
His lips quirked and his eyes danced, "The feeling is mutual, my love." He murmured, the endearment squeezing her heart and robbing her of breath for a time. "But I owe it all to you; and my family, of course. You all taught me how to love"
"Love isn't a thing learned or taught." She told him, "You already knew love; you just didn't know what to do with it."
"Oh?" he said again and leaned back and away from her and she missed his body heat more than she thought she would, "tell me more then. What else did I always know but had little idea what to do with it?"
Because she was silent for a stretch of time, he looked across at her, his legs apart and braced against the ridges of the tiles on the roof, the only thing keeping him stable high above the world as he was, and he waited.
And it happened again, the curious dawning that came on her. For those few seconds of silence while they looked curiously at each other, the painted veil of expectations was lifted and she saw not what she thought she would, but what she never expected; that rare clarity, the guarded expression gone, his lean, young, beautiful face and affection. Deep, abiding affection and feelings so strong they could ruin anyone. His eyes now, were his weapon and there was a reason he had always kept them so well shielded; if Artemis Fowl aimed those same eyes at everyone, the world would fall.
And yet she didn't.
She sat there, seeing that, and the earth didn't quake, the graves didn't give up their dead, and the skies didn't fall. She just felt overwhelmed.
He smiled at her, shook his head and looked away into the vibrant dusk. The wind tore through his dark hair that of late never seemed to want to be kempt and he chanced falling, removing his hands from their death grip on the sloping roof and leaned back, lounging against aged tiles.
The clarity left just as the silence descended between them and he was once again in the fringes of her sight, there but not tangible in her eyes. He was still blurry, still a mystery to her and she wouldn't for the life of Frond and all others, give up now the safety of the unknown.
It was a coward's move- no move at all, but what else was she to do? Holly had watched Artemis grow, had helped in her own way to raise him and turn him into this young man and she felt sick, almost perverse every time the desperate longing came over her. What business had she to want to know how he felt or tasted? He was a grown man by any standards, well into his 20s, in charge of his life and finances as he always was, and yes she knew he was no child, not the jaded and lonely little boy, capturing fairies for his amusement and ransoming them off to the highest bidder; he was no longer that child who caught butterflies and picked off their wings. So why was she hesitant?
The sun descended slowly behind the horizon, well into the evening, and she left him there on the roof as the cold came in, ate and even fell asleep on the couch in his study, refusing to think more than she was willing to risk.
She awoke close to 3 am and he was still out there, watching the night sky.
It all fell apart, or rather, into place, weeks later.
On her second visit to the surface, the week before her suspension was up and she would be back on active duty, she sat in his kitchen on a high backed bar stool around the island, more playing around with than eating from a bowl of grains and nuts she had salvaged from the pantry, he walked calmly into the room and took her hand.
She stopped chewing, afraid she would miss something he had to say and nearly tripped falling out of the too high chair as he led her from around the counter out the kitchen.
She asked him what was wrong and for the life of her, he wouldn't say anything, simply smiled back at her until she finally asked "Where are we going?"
He took her up and up in the old house, into the East wing she had never entered because it was the guest wing, and he continued through the halls of the house, his hand large and warm and comforting, enveloping hers and she allowed herself to be led, intrigued.
He stopped before a simple dark stained wooden door, took a key from the top pocket of his dress shirt, brass and aged, and turned it in the lock.
She immediately sneezed.
"Any allergies I should know of before I descend into this commitment?" he asked and it immediately put her on guard. Halfway through her rubbing her nose she stared into the darkness of the echoing room, only hearing the soft padding of his shoes across an empty space.
"Commitment?" she almost stuttered, terrified of a number of possibilities, trying to sound aloof.
The sound of strained metal, sharp and shrill, grinding against itself, stiff with age, resonated throughout the room and by little degrees, the room grew brighter and brighter.
Artemis stood across the floor of a large atrium, legs braced and muscles tensed as he spun the wheel over and over that opened the skylights above-
And light came in, in every shape and form and colour and size and she was staring up at an expanse of stained glass. The domed ceiling shone every colour imaginable into the room, mirrors reflecting the morning sun down into the patchwork of glass and Holly could do little more than stare.
She had seen many things in her life, seen lives taken, destroyed with her two hands and built just the same with them and she was almost moved to tears by glass.
In the frenzy of patterns and glass above them, from the center radiating outwards to the ends of the dome was there life. Depictions of them, battles, arguments, people they met, the twins, the Butlers, Julius Root, Foaly, Opal, the days as Orion where Atlantis Complex ate away at his will, and there, in the middle, amidst the chaos and confusion of all their history, were they.
Face to face, equal in every way, not touching, just being.
She didn't realize she was crying until she felt him touch her face, startled because she hadn't even noticed he had moved to stand with her beneath the glow of light and she tried for moments to speak but little came out.
"I-I don't, I don't understand. What are you—?"
"What are you willing to do for me, Holly?" He asked.
"In terms of what?" inquired Holly, more confused than when they began and she watched him move away from her.
He pulled two stools from their positions against the wall and sat them in the center of the atrium, put her on one and sat opposite to her, her tiny legs caught between his large thighs as he braced his feet against the bars at the bottom of her stool.
Before she could ask anything more, he slouched and leaned forward, his face to hers and spoke so softly, the dust on the floors hardly vibrated.
"Me." He said quietly. "What are you willing to give in return for me?"
"I can't wait." He spoke simply as if it were all he needed to say, "I cannot and will not wait for you to make up your mind. I won't wait around for you to talk yourself out of loving me and I will not live without you."
She still said nothing, just stared at him, wide, wet confused eyes.
"This is my commitment to you," he continued as he looked up to the masterpiece above, his face cast in a saffron light that made his pale skin look healthy and flushed with life, "I commit myself to you. Whatever it is, whatever way, it will be done. Anything you would or could want of me, I will manage it. I am willing to give everything for you, your weight and some in gold. But are you willing to give anything for me."
He settled his eyes on her again and it could be the tears, or her stubborn, decade long myopia, but she could not see him clearly.
"I stole you when I was young and weak and foolish and I don't regret it. And I have no chance or way of rectifying that, but I can return you. I can give you back, restore some sanity to your life and I can be gone."
"You see, Holly," he said after taking a deep breath and his intense eyes were staring into hers again, "I don't intend to live without you quietly. I have a decade long experience in making peoples' lives miserable and I won't be refused quietly. I am terrified—" and he breathed the word out as if it made him so exhausted and crippled with fear she could almost feel it for him-" more so than you will understand, of ending up where I started off."
"I won't live without you." He said finished, "and this—" he pointed up, "is my declaration. I have been stumbling about blind for years, confused about what I was feeling, unwilling to accept it and I won't wait. I have waited for you. "
The lights above them shifted, just as they had throughout the years, changing, just as he had matured and just as she had forgiven, and it was suddenly too bright for her to see; one of the mirrors reflected the sharp morning light straight through a unstained panel, down into the room against the glass windows into her eyes and she blinked rapidly.
The brightness cleared and she saw everything and wondered what had made her so blind, so unwilling and scared for so many years, what had made her so short sighted. He had always been right in front of her… and yet she never saw this coming.
She sat up, climbing across his thighs into his lap and watched light dance across his dark hair and followed the pattern with her fingers and this close, his nose drew a pattern from her clavicle to the crook of her neck where she could feel his breath linger and she let out a tense sigh she didn't realize she was keeping in.
And he went blurry again, because he was too close for sight, right before her eyes and leaning closer still until she wasn't breathing, couldn't possibly take any air into her lungs, and he was kissing her.
Her limbs went limp and she could only feel, feel his fingers tighten around her waist, feel him drag her closer to him, desperate, feel his tongue part her lips and then it was blinding light and heat and taste and the pleasure unfurling in her stomach and her mind relaxing and her blood rushing, just would not stop.
She would have let him, let him go on and on and rob her of sense because nothing should feel this good and the feeling of falling, disoriented and lethargic and drunk and lazy and in love was intoxicating and addictive, and maybe, just maybe, it was that feeling that kept them together for so long.
But she pulled away, taking time to adjust to air she didn't want because she wanted him, wanted his air and his taste, wanted to suffocate tasting and feeling that alone but she needed to live for him if not for herself. She needed him. She loved him.
"I'll give everything," she said quietly, "any and everything."
She saw him smile, saw his eyes brighten as he cupped her face and kissed her, a soft, lingering kiss, and then he kissed her hands he held in his.
"Good." He answered, because that, she realized, was exactly what he wanted to hear.
.:Owari:.
Notes:
1. College is the devil and has completely taken over my life and happiness and I shall soon run away and hide in Neverland and never grow up.
2. I really don't know. Just... Yeah. I've been away.